Beverley Bateman Is My Guest

Please welcome fellow Canadian, Beverley Bateman. What would you like readers to know about you, Beverley?
I’m a really boring person and I’m techno challenged, so I have a lot to learn these days. I live in the beautiful Okanagan valley in southern British Columbia with my husband and two Shiba Inu dogs. It’s apple, pear, peach and apricot orchard country. We have beaches and skiing in the mountains. (Okay, not in the same season) And it’s wine country with award winning wines and ice wines. Yes, it’s my duty to taste them and it does help with the writing.

I agree! I love the Okanagan. Are you a full time writer or do you have a “day job”?
I've done both. I wrote when I had a day job and a tight schedule. I wrote a lot. Then I quit and found I didn't write as much. I think I wasn't on a tight schedule so I kind of goofed off. Now I’m back to writing and put in a good 3-4 hours writing and another 1-2 hours on marketing.

Do you have other talents? 
I’m not sure it’s a talent –yet, but I do paint. I do watercolors. I’m a beginner and love what you can do with colors. It’s also fun.

I've tried watercolors, but I don't have an artistic bone in my body! What do you do to promote your work?
I probably should do more but I’m learning. I've started to blog. You can check it out at http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/  I do blogs on other people’s sites. I twitter (tweet) and I’m on Facebook and have an author’s page. I’m on Triberr and Pinterest, although I don’t do much with Pinterest. I’m on Goodreads, but learning how it works. I post to several online loops.

Tell us about your current WIP.
My latest WIP is Missing – Luke’s story. It’s part of the Hawkins Ranch series. Missing is the 2nd book in the series set in Duster, Montana. The series is the stories of four Hawkins brothers. Luke is the doctor for Duster. He’s looking for someone to assist in his practice. The person who responds is a single doctor from New York. Luke is single but has adopted a daughter. Someone is threatening a kidnapping and Luke’s daughter is the victim.

Sounds exciting! What inspired this story?
Honestly? I’m not sure I want to admit this, but I was going through all those books that have been rejected, either fulls or partials, and realized I’d written three that were all set in small town, Montana. I thought why not make them part of a series? So I went through and made a list of all the townspeople and stores and rewrote the Hawkins Ranch series.

Wonderful! Give us an elevator pitch for your book. 

 Small town doctor gets a city doctor to help in his clinic. When his daughter is kidnapped, he has to save her, and convince the woman he loves that she really is a small town doctor at heart.

Are you traditionally published, self-published or both? 

I guess I can say both. I was published by two different small publishers and then I got my rights back and now I’m self-published.  However I have to find a cover artist and pay them. I need a proof reader and I have to pay them. If I do it myself, I have to learn how to format for epub or mobi and upload them to each site. Your publisher does that for you. Marketing stays the same with either.

Good points. What is your writing routine like?
That’s another good question. I always read other authors' blog and posts and ask what they do. I keep looking for something that works for me. I often do head work before I get up – thinking about where I’m at and where I’m going. Then once I’m up I do research in the morning (right after I do my email). I don’t actually write until after dinner. Then I hit the keyboard for 4 -5 hours.

What are you reading now?
I just downloaded The First Phone Call from Heaven by Mitch Albom.

What’s your opinion on authors giving away free books?
I don’t do it. I think our work is worth more than free. I know authors do it because they think that if someone downloads it and read it they might buy the next book. I download free books because authors ask me to and it does something for their position. (I’m not sure what). I've never read one yet. So I guess I’m not a fan.

We’d love a blurb and an excerpt from your latest book.
Running from a disastrous engagement, and an over-powering father, Dr. Allie Parsons agrees to help out an old friend and travels to Duster, Montana. She’s agreed to help the local doctor for a brief period of time until he can find a permanent new doctor. Raised her whole life in New York city, Allie is greeted with culture shock when she finds out how small Duster is, but she also finds a warm, friendly community. And the doctor turns out to be young, tall, dark and handsome. He sends her emotions shooting sky high. She’s welcomed into the Hawkins family and develops a relationship with his daughter. A mysterious stranger leaves notes at the clinic and Allie fears they are a warning he’s going to kidnap the doctor’s daughter.

Luke Hawkins, one of the Hawkins’ brothers is looking for a doctor to take over half the practice from the retiring doctor. He’s not expecting his temporary replacement to be a young, sexy, single woman from New York. He knows she’s the woman he’s been searching for all his life, but he also knows she won’t stay in Duster. He doesn't believe the notes are meant for him until his daughter is kidnapped. Now he has to save his daughter and convince the woman he loves that she really is a small town doctor at heart.

Excerpt
"Allie pushed open the door to the clinic and stepped into the small, crowded waiting room. The slight scent of antiseptic tickled her nose. She stopped.

Silence crept across the room. One by one, heads turned toward the door.

It might be the novelty of a stranger, but more likely it was the novelty of a stranger in fancy city clothes with a run in her stocking. She threaded her way through the patients to the reception counter. Patients watched her. A few of them put down the magazines they were thumbing through.

She’d bet a month’s salary those magazines were three or four years old. The furniture in the waiting room had seen better days, but it was serviceable.

The men and women stared at her, probably wondering who the heck she was. Several patients smiled at her. She managed to return the smiles. At least no one laughed.

A man stood behind the counter, tall, broad-shouldered, and maybe thirtyish He had curly dark hair, a strong, square chin and he caught her attention right away. His cobalt blue eyes, under long dark lashes, latched on to her as she walked toward him. Even partially covered by his lab coat, his muscled chest strained against the white t-shirt.

If he was the doctor he was definitely not the old geezer she’d expected.

A few feet from the counter, she stopped. His electric blue eyes locked on her. She couldn’t look away. Sensuality oozed across the space between them. Her breath hitched into an irregular rhythm, kicking her pulse up a notch.

“Good, you finally got here. I thought Jean would send someone a little faster.” His rich, smooth voice rolled over her. “Look, we’re backed up. Patients’ files are over there and the appointment book is on the desk. Check them in, pull their file, and put the file in the slot by the examining room door.”

“Excuse me?” She stared up at the man snapping orders at her. She’d run away from one tyrant and had no intention of putting up with another overbearing one, even if he was knock-down gorgeous. His firm abs, linebacker-type shoulders and muscular body did not compensate for his attitude.

Who did this jerk think he was?

Her back stiffened. She assumed he was the doctor, but his manners confused her. If staff and working partners were expected to put up with this, no wonder they hadn't been able to find another doctor.

“You’re not going to make me repeat all that are you? I have a room full of patients. When I asked Jean to send a temp over from the hospital, I thought she’d send someone with training and at least a vague idea of what they were doing.” A sigh slipped through his lips and he rolled his eyes. The look he gave her placed her one step above an idiot.

He pointed to a huge pile of folders. “The patients’ files are…”

Allie pulled her shoulders back, raised her chin and tightened her lips together. “Excuse me. I believe you’ve made a mistake. First of all, I’m not stupid. Second, I’m not your damn temp. I’m a doctor, Alexandra Parsons, M.D. I understood you were expecting me.”

“You’re the new doc? Shoot. I didn't expect you today.” The heart-stopping man stared down at her. His full lips drooped in apparent disappointment.

The disappointment could be her or the fact he still didn't have a temp. She couldn't tell.

“I arrived early, so I could acquaint myself with the town and find a place to live. I dropped by to introduce myself.”

He focused on her, drawing his eyebrows into a frown. “You’re the new physician? I should have known by that fancy outfit, it screams big city.”

“Sorry. I've just arrived and haven’t had time to get my jeans and plaid shirt yet. I’ll move that to the top of my list, so I’ll fit in.”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, but he controlled it, as he ran his fingers through the tangle of dark curls."

Thank you for being my guest today, Beverley. I don't think you're boring in the least! Love your cover by the way.  Here is contact information.
Website http://www.beverleybateman.com/
Blog http://beverleybateman.blogspot.com/
Amazon
Sony
Nook

Peace of Mind

As an old year draws to a close and we look forward to new beginnings, we often find ourselves searching for something that will bring us peace of mind.

I've adopted a mantra that over the years has brought me exactly that. It’s been around for hundreds of years. It’s simple, easy to remember and effective.

It is one of the most famous lines in Catholic theological writing and is one of the best-known phrases of medieval literature. Julian of Norwich claimed God himself had bestowed it upon her.

Here it is:

"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

I know. You’re sceptical, right?

Let me tell you about Julian of Norwich. She was an English anchoress who lived from about 1342 until about 1416. She is regarded as one of the most important Christian mystics. Anchorites were religious hermits who often spent their lives in contemplative prayer in tiny cells built onto existing churches. Very little is known about Julian's life. Her personal name is unknown and the name "Julian" simply derives from the fact that her cell was built onto the wall of the church of St Julian in Norwich.

St. Julian's

She may have been from a privileged family that lived in Norwich, or nearby. Norwich was at the time the second largest city in England. Plague epidemics were rampant during the 14th century and, according to some scholars, Julian may have become an anchoress whilst still unmarried or, having lost her family in the Plague, as a widow. Becoming an anchoress may have served as a way to quarantine her from the rest of the population.

There is debate as to whether Julian was a nun in a nearby convent or even a laywoman. When she was 30 and living at home, Julian suffered from a severe illness. Whilst apparently on her deathbed, she had a series of intense visions of Jesus Christ, which ended by the time she recovered from her illness on 13 May 1373.

Julian wrote about her visions immediately after they had happened in a version of the Revelations of Divine Love now known as the Short Text. This narrative of 25 chapters is about 11,000 words long. It is believed to be the earliest surviving book written in the English language by a woman.

Twenty to thirty years later, perhaps in the early 1390s, Julian began to write a theological exploration of the meaning of the visions, known as The Long Text, which consists of 86 chapters and about 63,500 words. This work seems to have gone through many revisions before it was finished, perhaps in the first or even second decade of the fifteenth century.

Julian became well known throughout England as a spiritual authority. The English mystic Margery Kempe, who was the author of the first known autobiography written in England, mentioned going to Norwich to speak with her in around 1414.

Julian of Norwich lived in a time of turmoil, but her theology was optimistic and spoke of God's love in terms of joy and compassion, as opposed to law and duty. For Julian, suffering was not a punishment that God inflicted, as was the common understanding. She believed that God loved everyone and wanted to save them all.

Popular theology, confirmed in people’s minds by the Black Death and a series of peasant revolts, asserted that God punished the wicked. Julian suggested a more merciful theology, which some say leaned towards universal salvation. Although Julian's views were not typical, the authorities did not challenge her theology because of her status as an anchoress. A lack of references to her work during her own time may indicate that the religious authorities did not count her worthy of refuting, since she was a woman.

Her theology was unique in three aspects: her view of sin; her belief that God is all-loving and without wrath; and her view of Christ as mother. According to Julian, God is both our mother and our father. Feminist theology in our own times has developed along similar lines. The harmony Julian suggests between the motherly and fatherly qualities of Christ has greatly influenced feminist theology.

Julian saw no anger in God. Her belief in God as mother was controversial. Julian believed that the mother's role was the truest of all jobs on earth.

For me Julian’s mantra is a positive and simple way to reaffirm that even in times of stress and trouble, all shall be well.
I wish you peace as we journey into 2014.

Promoting My Competition: Are You On My List?

About a year ago, I embarked on a program on my blog to interview other authors in the romance genre. The idea was that my guests would share the wealth of their experiences as writers. I looked at it as an opportunity to get to know fellow authors and learn from them.
Many might consider this as promoting my competition, and they'd be right. That's one of the things I love about belonging to the writing community: not only do we promote each other incidentally with advice, information, reviews, tweets, FB announcements and the like, we actively help each other succeed.


A perfect example is the LoveHistoricals website I've recently had the good fortune to become part of. Thirteen historical romance authors have banded together to promote each other! Five of these writers are women who either blogged with me and/or I was a guest on their blog. I encourage you to read the stories written by these generous authors: Cynthia Woolf, Margery Scott, Sydney Jane Baily, Jill Hughey and Heather Boyd. At the end of this post is the complete list of the remainder of my guests since January 2013, with my thanks.

Cynthia Woolf: Fiery Bride.
After a disastrous marriage, Matchmaker Maggie vowed never to marry again. She will never give another man the power of life and death over her body and soul. Unfortunately, that doesn't keep her lonely heart from fantasizing about her newest client, Caleb Black. She made the mistake of starting a flirtatious correspondence with the clever devil, believing they would never meet. But when his new bride abandons her mid-way to Colorado to elope with another man, Maggie is forced to face the devastatingly handsome Caleb and explain. Now she'll have to stay long enough to make things right and find him a new wife. But Maggie better hang on to her vow with both hands, because Caleb has other plans for the fiery matchmaker...and a very seductive kiss.

Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00DSSVG72
BN: http://bit.ly/1a7Qizy
Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/fiery-bride/id670597781?ls=1
Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=fiery+bride

Margery Scott: Emma's Wish

A man consumed with grief ...
Sam Jenkins still hasn't come to terms with his wife’s death, but he can't build his ranch in the Texas wilderness and care for three children alone. He has only one heart-breaking choice – send his children away until he can provide for them properly.

A woman desperate for a family ...
A tragic accident changed Emma Witherspoon’s life. Now, she has accepted the fact that she will never have a husband and children of her own, but that doesn't ease the ache in her heart.

A proposition ...
When Emma offers Sam a marriage of convenience, neither of them can foresee the changes that will make their lives – and their relationship – anything but ‘convenient’.


Buy links: Amazon Barnes&Noble Apple (iTunes) Kobo Smashwords

Sydney Jane Baily: An Inescapable Attraction

In a year of roaming the West, angel-faced, sharp-tongued Eliza encounters a world of card sharks and low-life gamesters, all the while trying to forget the searing brand of one man’s fiery kisses. In a dangerous game of high-stakes poker, she tangles with the wrong gambler and finds herself in a heap of trouble. With heartache haunting her relentlessly and a killer on her trail, she has no choice but to run.

Thaddeus Sanborn has always had a weakness for the girl he calls Ellie. Even though she cut him to the quick by getting engaged to his childhood friend, she’s the only female who’s ever kept his interest smoldering at a scorching level. When she steams unexpectedly into his carefree life, derailing his plans for getting rich, he’s stunned by the trouble that accompanies her. But he’ll do just about anything—even kill—to protect her.

Dangerous men, Indian trackers, and wanton women populate the landscape—while steam trains, swift horses, and a lively riverboat keep Eliza and Thaddeus on the move. Though they do their best to escape the peril that’s always merely a hoofbeat behind, they can never run away from their own Inescapable Attraction.

Website: http://www.sydneyjanebaily.com 

Purchase: http://amzn.com/B00H7LEUOM

Jill Hughey: Vain

A tailor’s abandoned daughter fashions a vain nobleman’s tunic, finding passion between the neckline and hem as misfortune forces her into his precarious aristocratic world. 

Links: Amazon http:// viewBook.at/Vain
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/vain-jill-hughey/1114587598?ean=2940016262406
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id669474409
Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/Books/vain-evolution-series-3
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/284641

Heather Boyd: Miss George's Second Chance 

When desperately private writer Imogen George offered to marry neighbour Peter Watson it wasn't just to save a friend but to secure her own future. With her eyesight failing and no other prospects for marital bliss on the horizon, surely it wouldn't be too horrible to marry without the benefits of love. But then Peter gains a title a week before they’re set to wed and all of Imogen’s expectations change.

Peter once believed that marriage to Imogen would solve his financial problems. He didn't mind marrying for convenience and a large fortune when affection was within reach. Yet when he gains a title, an estate, and a fortune of his own the secretive writer releases him from their engagement so he might marry for love instead. Now he’s returned, unwed and unaware of changes in her life, should he do what is expected or listen to his heart instead?

APPLE 

Aus  https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/miss-georges-second-chance/id737406840?mt=11&uo=4
US  https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/miss-georges-second-chance/id737406840?mt=11&uo=4
UK  https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/miss-georges-second-chance/id737406840?mt=11&uo=4
Canada  https://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/miss-georges-second-chance/id737406840?mt=11&uo=4
Amazon US  http://www.amazon.com/Georges-Second-Chance-Mayhem-Novella-ebook/dp/B00GMU6P7O/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384309273&sr=1-1&keywords=B00GMU6P7O
UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Georges-Second-Chance-Mayhem-Novella-ebook/dp/B00GMU6P7O/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384309273&sr=1-1&keywords=B00GMU6P7O
aRE  https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-missgeorge039ssecondchanceamissmayhemnovella-1344504-160.html
Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/374755
Barnes & Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/miss-georges-second-chance-heather-boyd/1117341656?ean=2940045370844
Kobo  http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/miss-george-s-second-chance

Here's the list of my remaining guests:
Virginia Henley

Danita Cahill

Victoria Pinder

Joan Reeves

Mary J. McCoy-Dressel

Sandy Loyd

Lois Winston

Ruth Glick (Rebecca York)

Judy Roth

Lily Rede

Jennifer Zane

Mary Raimes Curtis

Rose Anderson

Jill James

Janis Patterson

Pati Jager

Sharon Kleve

BC Brown

Leanne Tyler

Bonnie Edwards *

Florence Witkop

Melissa Keir

Berengaria Brown

Gemma Juliana

Shelley Bates *

Cara Marsi

Virginia Vail Kelly

Diane Burton

Dawn Marie Hamilton

E. Ayers

Jodie Esch *

Lynda Bailey

Jane Toombs

Pat Amsden *

Tina Donahue

Reggi Allder *

Mary Marvella

Melba Moon

Kate Hill

Mona Risk

Mimi Barbour *

*Fellow members of Vancouver Island Chapter RWA.

Napping: The Romance Writer’s Secret Weapon

If you want to be a successful writer you have to learn to nap. 

When we nap, we are resting our eyes while our imaginations soar. We can sort and sift, visualizing our hero and or heroine, creating scenarios for their story. 

Napping requires a prone position. We might drift off, just far enough to rescue our creative spirit from the chaos of everyday life. 

Where to nap? A bed is the obvious place, or in the living room recliner with the footrest up; a hammock is the best napping invention ever. 

How long should you nap? An hour is the optimum. That’s long enough to free your mind of the nagging demands of real life and set it free to solve the block you’ve encountered in your plot, or come up with an idea to transform a sagging middle into something the reader can’t put down. More than an hour and your family will start to worry. 

Comedian and writer Carrie Snow hit the nail on the head when she said, “No day is so bad it can’t be fixed by a nap.” We can paraphrase her statement to apply to untying knots in our creative thought process. 

If you can’t nap, you can always daydream. What?! Weren't you told to quit daydreaming when you were a child? Like me you probably felt guilty for years when you lapsed into reverie. Instead, we should seek opportunities to daydream. Folding laundry, ironing, riding a bus, cleaning silverware: none of these require your mind to be in the present. You could be off exploring medieval castles, tracking down a vampire or riding the range with a handsome cowboy. One of my favorite places to daydream is walking along a deserted beach. 

Daydreams are fertile soil where creativity incubates. The Muse visits in reverie, even if the daydream has nothing to do with the project you’re working on. You know you've been daydreaming successfully when you’re suddenly jolted out of it! 

But we don’t just dream during the day, do we? Night-time dreams can be problem solvers too. I dream about my characters especially in the early hours of the morning, just before waking. I've "written" some of my best work then. Of course, sometimes I can’t remember the details when I wake up, but sooner or later, it sifts back into my consciousness and becomes an Aha! moment. 

Beethoven and Brahms used to jump out of bed in the middle of the night to write down scores. Thoreau kept a pencil and paper under his pillow. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote the poem Kubla Khan in his sleep and Robert Louis Stevenson worked out plot details of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

I can almost guarantee that napping, daydreaming and nightscaping will resolve seemingly insoluble problems, even those that have nothing to do with writing. In The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco says, “A dream is a scripture.”

I wish you sweet dreams!

Help Choose a Book Title

Please welcome my friend and fellow RWA chapter member, Mimi Barbour. I owe Mimi a debt of gratitude for mentoring and encouraging me when I first started to write seriously.

Thanks so much for having me as your guest today Anna. It’s lovely to visit with someone who has the same goals and dreams.

I thought I’d share with you what’s happening in my life right now. I've just released “She’s Not You” which is this year’s Christmas story. Publishing a new book is always an exciting time for an author. For me, it’s a feeling of accomplishment that I love. I’ll admit it gives me a sweet rush that’s become addictive.

Is it the knowledge that I've finished something I started that’s so pleasurable? Heck - I don’t know. Could it be the story that’s existed in my head now has a happy ending?
Maybe…
At least now I can move on. Make room for the other characters who've been driving me batty, impatiently waiting on the sidelines and madly waving at me from time to time.
She’s Not You came to me in a the craziest way. Driving home from the nearest city one day, I listened to the radio and Elvis’s old song started to play. Since it was one of my favorites, the words rang in my head and wouldn't turn off.
I’m serious… It would not turn off!
I’m talking day after day I found myself singing the chorus until I was driven mad enough to go and look up the lyrics. When I read them, a thought popped into my head that those words told a sad yet beautiful story and POOF!! There went the next two months of my life.
Did I imagine that I could write one book, heck no. I’m now committed to writing a series - all based on the words to the King’s old recordings. His music brought people into the Rock and Roll age and gave hours of listening entertainment to millions of fans.
Myself, I crushed on the singer so his songs have always ranked as many of my old favorites. Therefore, bringing them to life in a book is a labor of love.
Since I haven’t chosen which song to use for the next book yet, I intend to set up a contest to let the readers help make that decision. The information for this contest will be posted on my website and Facebook page. So… if you’d like to be involved, please do come and either sign up for my newsletter on my website or follow me on Facebook. Soon, I will be writing a post and sending everyone linked with me the simple rules.

**The winner will not only choose the title by picking his/ her favorite song of Elvis’s, but the book will be dedicated to that person also.

Contacts:
Website: http://www.mimibarbour.com
Blog: http://mimibarbour.blogspot.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mimi.barbour?ref=tn_tnmn
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MimiBarbour @MimiBarbour

Author of The Vicarage Bench Series, Angels with Attitude Series, and the Vegas Series, Mimi lives on the East coast of Vancouver Island and writes her paranormal romances with tongue in cheek and a mad glint in her eye. “If I can steal a booklover’s attention away from their every-day grind, absorb them into a fantasy love story, and make them care about the ending, then I've done my job.”

Ask For More

In this season of thanks for our abundance, we have plenty to be thankful for. This week in the homes of our American friends, pies will cool on racks and kitchens will be filled with the fragrances and aromas of anticipation.

Hearts will be glad as families reunite and share the celebration together. It’s not often we have the chance to enjoy complete contentment.

My husband and I have just undergone our annual physical checkups and are lucky to be hale and healthy. For that I am truly thankful. Declining health is a difficult taskmaster. In the developed world most of us have access to excellent medical care, but we cannot purchase good health.

So should we be content with what we have? Is it greedy to ask for more?

Hard on the heels of Thanksgiving comes the season of razzamatazz and for some a feeling of lack. There never seems to be enough money for the things we want for ourselves and our family members and friends.

Two years ago, I asked for more, even though I had plenty. I asked for the blessing of creative expression as I embarked on a new career as a writer. 

You know what they say. Ask and ye shall receive.

Spirit listened and I did receive. This week I am extremely thankful to have reached a milestone of 40,000 books sold in the last two years. 

Readers enjoy my books—exactly what I asked for.

In the coming weeks we can ask for our credit and debit cards to go through okay, or we can ask for blessings like good physical and mental health, energy, vitality, creativity. If you don’t get it, at least you tried!

Welcome Kate Hill

Hello Kate. Tell us about yourself.

I’m a forty-something vegetarian New Englander who loves to read, write, work out and watch horror and action movies.

I love connecting with readers, so I visit my publishers’ yahoo/chat groups as often as I can. Also I enjoy hosting special events at my site, such as my annual Halloween page. I have a blog, yahoo group and a website that’s regularly updated. I’m also on Twitter.

My latest series is Combustion, which is published by Changeling Press. It’s erotic science fiction that focuses on a group of aliens who are temporarily stranded on Earth. Trouble in Paradise is my first independently published story. It’s a traditional romantic adventure.
I wanted to write a traditional romance with a heroine who was a little unconventional for her time. Also I wanted to work on a story with a bit more of a buildup to the hero and heroine getting into bed than what I generally write for my current publishers.

Are you a plotter or a pantser, Kate?  

I guess I’m a bit of both, although I’m more of a plotter. Before I start writing, I like to know my characters pretty well and I also need to have a loose outline so I know where the story is going.

Are you traditionally published, self-published or both? 

Both. I write regularly for Changeling Press and I’ve also been published by Ellora’s Cave and New Concepts Publishing. They’ve been fantastic to work with. Trouble in Paradise is my first self-published book. I didn’t feel it would fit well with any of my publishers, so instead of submitting it I decided to publish it independently. Right now I’m revising a previously published story to re-release independently. It will probably be out toward the end of this year or early next year.
I’ve only had one book self-published so far, but I found it to be a lot of work and pretty stressful. With a publisher, you have a lot of help. You’re supplied with editors and cover art. The publisher oversees distribution of the book. Self-published authors are in charge of everything and it takes a lot of time and effort, but it has a tradeoff. You get to see the kind of story you want to write done exactly how you want it, from cover art to characterization. It took over a year of revisions before I felt Trouble in Paradise was in shape to be published.

How do you create sexual tension in your romances? For me it depends on the characters. For some, lust-at-first-sight works. Others take more time before they get together. In Trouble in Paradise, when Grace and RC first meet, she’s completely disgusted with him and with good reason. Once he cleans up his act, she finds him hard to resist.

Do you have any rejection stories to share? Tons!! Rejection just goes with the territory. One that stands out in my mind is a rejection letter that told me my character who was a college student acted too much like a college student. I’m still trying to figure that one out! I eventually sold the story, but I’m still amused by that particular criticism.

What is your writing routine like? I set aside a certain amount of time each day for writing, editing and promo. Since I love keeping calendars and charts, I use them to keep track of my time and drive my family crazy leaving them all over the house.

What are you reading now? Right now I’m reading Making Waves by Cathryn Fox and Jaci Burton.

We’d love a blurb and an excerpt from your latest book.

Trouble in Paradise by Kate Hill (Romantic Suspense) Available at
All Romance Ebooks
https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-troubleinparadise-1153845-152.html
Barnes & Noble
http://tinyurl.com/d2ok42u
Smashwords
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/302667

Before cell phones and reality TV, when women had big hair and men were all about action and adventure, a girl walks into a bar searching for a hero. She finds R. C. Benson, a soldier turned grave robber wallowing in past sins. With a marriage of convenience, a pet shark and a shady butler, Grace and R. C. have their work cut out for them, but that gives them the perfect chance to fall in love.

Excerpt:
“That was some night.” Grace slipped off her shoes once she and R. C. returned to their hotel room. “I can’t wait to get to bed.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Now you’re talking.”
Grace shot him a serious look and pointed in his face. “Remember this is not for real. If you think I’m having sex with you, you’re crazy.”
“Of course I’m crazy. I’ve gone along with this ridiculous idea of yours, haven’t I?”
“I mean it, Benson. You come near me and I’ll castrate you.”
He chuckled and winced at the same time. “Oh and you’d try, too.”
“You can count on it.”
“Well you can’t blame me for trying.” He hung his jacket next to the others in the closet and removed his tie. He unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the lean, hair-dusted chest she longed to caress.
“I’m changing in the bathroom,” she said.
“You like the right side of the bed or the left?”
She glanced over her shoulder, one hand on the bathroom door. “I said I’m not sleeping with you.”
“No. You said you’re not having sex with me. If you think I’m going to sleep on the floor, you’re the one who’s nuts.”
“Fine. I’ll sleep on the floor, seeing how you’re such a gentleman.”
“The bed is king size. You don’t even have to touch me.”
“Damn right about that.”
“Look.” He piled pillows down the center of the bed. “How’s that?”
She narrowed her eyes. The thought of sleeping on the floor wasn't appealing.
“When we get to the island, we’re going to have to share everything, so we might as well start now.”

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Kate is giving away a pdf copy of her book to one lucky commenter.